PSP sales up 85% in US since last year

According to this, PSP sales have risen 85 percent year-on-year "over last April". John Koller, Sony's PSP senior marketing manager in the States, has pinned the rise on the fact that the console's redesign to the Slim & Light model has attracted a new audience to the machine, namely one that wants to use multimedia functionality.

"We're finding in a lot of our research that the consumer's using the PSP because of its gaming but then also because it has these other elements as some of the other devices they own, but they don't want to bring four or five devices with them in their pocket," he said. "The PSP solves all of those multifunctional demands in one product.

"It's primarily centred as a gaming machine. That said, the multifunctional aspects differentiate it from any competitive platform — and that's including the DS and the iPod, the Zune and the Zen and all the other handheld products that are available in the market, inclusive of mobile phones."

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